Partnerships over party: the political legacy of Patty Lent

Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent accepts a bouquet of flowers and a plaque from Ava Shockey, 8, at her retirement party at the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday. Shockey’s grandmother works for the Bremerton Parks and Recreation Department. Behind is a photo of the mayor at one of her many ribbon cuttings.(Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)Buy Photo

BREMERTON — During her often-turbulent one-term as county commissioner, Patty Lent once brought an apron to the office.

"If you can't stand the heat," Lent would say about it, "then get out of the kitchen."

Votes to raise impact fees and create "critical areas" around streams and wetlands led to a revolt against the then-Republican, ousting her in the primary of her first re-election campaign. But it would not mark the end of her political career.

Three years later, Lent found a new, less-partisan job that better suited her energetic and gregarious skill set: mayor of Bremerton. Supporters praise and detractors acknowledge her "open door" policy at City Hall and willingness to show up to just about anything important to a Bremerton resident.

"You didn't have to have a title or position to see the mayor," said Eric Roberts, pastor of Discovery Fellowship Church.

"She gave voice to everyone who walked through that door," he said.

As such, it took City Councilman Greg Wheeler, an opponent willing to walk more than 1,100 miles and doorbell 15,000 homes, to build a platform to beat the two-term incumbent this fall.

"She just has an unlimited amount of energy," said Elaine Valencia, executive assistant to the past six Bremerton mayors. "She can go day or night, 24-seven."

Lent once said her strategy in politics was to allow everyone on the sides of an issue to speak, get things off their chest. Only then do you "roll up your sleeves and find a remedy."

Buy Photo

Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent laughs as longtime mayor’s office secretary Elaine Valencia gifts her a key to the city at her retirement party at the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday.(Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)

Comfortable communicator

Patricia Ann Johnson grew up in Tacoma and graduated from Wilson High School, where she was homecoming queen. Once, she won a public speaking contest against students across five states — an omen for what was to come.

Before politics, she worked jobs in mortgage lending, as a travel agent and as a stewardess aboard Pacific Northern Airlines.

The executives at the company saw potential in Lent as a spokeswoman. Her colleagues saw Lent, with her charm, as a natural for politics.

"She had more personality in her baby finger than a roomful of people have in their entire bodies," said stewardess Marcia Dalton, who's remained a lifelong friend of Lent's.

When the airline — which through several mergers would later become Delta — was arguing for a new triangle route between Anchorage, Los Angeles and Honolulu in 1967, it sent Lent before the Hawaii State Legislature to do the job.

Mayor Patty Lent as flight attendant. She is standing in the back row, far left.(Photo: courtesy photo)

"I never dreamed then I would become an elected official," she recalled. "But I was comfortable as a communicator. I had self-confidence. And if I believed in it, I could speak to it."

She came to Kitsap County in 1988 after meeting Doug Lent, a lifelong resident and mechanical contractor, on a blind date. She didn't know anyone on the peninsula at the time. That would change quickly. Aside from some side work as a travel agent, her schedule filled up with volunteer stints: the Navy League, the American Heart Association, the Red Cross.

In 2002, she decided to run for county commissioner as a Republican. Her time in business, coupled with what she once called the "bold decisions" of Ronald Reagan, steered her toward fiscal conservatism. She defeated Democrat Tim Botkin to take the Central Kitsap seat.

Immediately, she took on a powerful role as the commission's political swing vote: former commissioners Chris Endresen Scott on her left and Jan Angel her right. Lent said she sought middle ground on the two most controversial issues of the day: raising impact fees for schools, roads and parks and creating a "critical areas" ordinance to protect wetlands and streams. But her party turned on her for supporting both. A wall of criticism mounted.

"It was a struggle for her," recalled Endresen Scott, who developed a "great respect" for Lent during that time. "I think that Patty was then, and is now, a politician working for compromise, trying to do the right thing, regardless of party."

Lent said she learned then you couldn't take the criticism personally. "I would do it all again," she said of her decisions.

But the mutiny was on. Republican Jack Hamilton beat Lent in the primary in 2006, though he later lost to Josh Brown, a Democrat. Bitterness set in. Lent left the Republican party and has never rejoined.

Buy Photo

Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent chokes up a tiny bit as she listens to an audience member talk about her tenure at her retirement party at the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday. (Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)

Bruising campaigns

Lent fell back on her volunteering, which gave her time to think about whether she'd try her hand at politics again. Her sister, Judy Hanson, prepared taxes, and Lent helped advocate for her clients who were behind on payments. It gave her some experience working with budgets, stories of personal struggles, and that "you should always have a plan B."

When Cary Bozeman resigned from the mayor's job early in 2009, it got Lent thinking about a position where no "D" or "R" would have to be by her name. Campaigning as an independent was freeing. She recalled going into a yard with a sign for Democrat Norm Dicks while door-belling one day. "Didn't you see the sign?" the neighbor told her. "Yes," she claims to have responded. "I voted for him, too. He's a great congressman."

Lent defeated Council President and the Bozeman-backed Will Maupin in the 2009 election by just 69 votes. As with each of Lent's campaigns for office, it was a bruising affair. Lent went before the Democrats and asked them not to endorse Maupin, a move that surprised him. There remain some hard feelings between the two, Maupin said.

Lent believes she helped pilot the city well through the Great Recession, a period in which the city staff fell from 370 to just above 300. Some employees took furloughs.

In 2013, Lent coasted to victory over local businessman Todd Best, a campaign during which Lent surfaced a ban applied to Best that kept him from going to Starbucks. "I just felt that people should know more about his character," she said at the time.

She said at the onset of her second term that she didn't need to run again. But she changed her mind, saying she had more work to do. But even this year's campaign versus Wheeler got chippy. When both were asked to describe a positive attribute of their opponent during a forum at the Admiral Theatre, Wheeler said Lent "goes to a lot of ribbon cuttings."

"Each ribbon-cutting means a brand new business has just opened up," Lent responded. "But my opponent is good-looking, he's got a beautiful wife, he likes the city, and he has door-belled most of you."

Buy Photo

Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent receives one of her many hugs at her retirement party at the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday. (Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)

Synergy with energy

Her views on government have changed through the years. She's learned city leaders must roll with the punches, and, no matter what, focus on the problems at hand.

"Governance through election is not like running a business," she said. "When your product is service to the people, it doesn't work that way."

Lent said Bremerton is a city with "liberal needs." She doesn't see much of a middle class left here.

"You either have a skilled job and make good money in a place like the shipyard or you're vulnerable for poverty," she said.

In her eight years as mayor, she constantly advocated for services — more for mental health, more for the homeless, more to combat the opiate epidemic. That included an attempt to bring a Seattle-based methadone clinic to the city. The City Council later killed the idea.

Her conservative roots told her that more services don't always mean more government. "People just don't trust us," she said. So she often sought community nonprofits — Holly Ridge, the Salvation Army, United Way, for example — to help solve community problems.

"Sometimes all we need to do is be a partner with them," she said.

When she came to office, she said she found the city's departments "in silos" with a lack of cohesion. She set about to open them but said she encountered opposition, some of which she felt was based on "being the city's second-ever woman mayor." Department heads were fired; some resigned. Today, she feels those departments have far greater synergy. Aside from some new streets, parks and housing for the homeless, that is what she feels is her proudest accomplishment.

"They'll remember what the mayor did that," she said. "Even if they don't remember the name."

Buy Photo

Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent greets kids in the audience at her retirement party at the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday. (Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)

Her retirement ceremony felt, at times, more like a recruitment event. Various organizations vied for her attention in her post-mayoral life.

Resident Shirley Knight cast her as "the most visible mayor."

"She attends every function, every party, every meeting you can conceive of," she said.

Lent, who is 73, says she's taking three months off to take it all in and see what she'll do next.

She admits she'll have a tough time staying out of the public eye.

"Every time you turn around, there's Patty Lent, and it's not even always the fun stuff," retiring City Councilman Dino Davis told her at her last council meeting on Dec. 20. "Your leadership, compassion and intelligence is something to aspire to."

Buy Photo

Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent has a big crowd of well wishers at her retirement party at the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday. (Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)